But this, I trust, is clearly understood,
If man or woman, if adored or hated--
Whoever own'd this Skull was not so good
Nor quite so bad as many may have stated;

are considered by him to be 'sportive and brightsome' and full of
'playful humor,' and 'two things especially are to be noted in
them--individuality and directness of expression.' Individuality and
directness of expression! We wonder what Mr. Matthews thinks these words
mean.

Unfortunate Mr. Locker with his uncouth American admirer! How he must
blush to read these heavy panegyrics! Indeed, Mr. Matthews himself has
at least one fit of remorse for his attempt to class Mr. Locker's work
with the work of Mr. Austin Dobson, but like most fits of remorse it
leads to nothing. On the very next page we have the complaint that Mr.
Dobson's verse has not 'the condensed clearness' and the 'incisive vigor'
of Mr. Locker's. Mr. Matthews should confine himself to his clever
journalistic articles on Euchre, Poker, bad French and old jokes. On
these subjects he can, to use an expression of his own, 'write funny.' He
'writes funny,' too, upon literature, but the fun is not quite so
amusing.

Pen and Ink: Papers on Subjects of More or Less Importance. By Brander
Matthews. (Longmans, Green and Co.)

SOME LITERARY NOTES--III

(Woman's World, March 1889.)

Miss Nesbit has already made herself a name as a writer of graceful and
charming verse, and though her last volume, Leaves of Life, does not show
any distinct advance on her former work, it still fully maintains the
high standard already achieved, and justifies the reputation of the
author. There are some wonderfully pretty poems in it, poems full of
quick touches of fancy, and of pleasant ripples of rhyme; and here and
there a poignant note of passion flashes across the song, as a scarlet
thread flashes through the shuttlerace of a loom, giving a new value to
the delicate tints, and bringing the scheme of colour to a higher and
more perfect key. In Miss Nesbit's earlier volume, the Lays and Legends,
as it was called, there was an attempt to give poetic form to
humanitarian dreams and socialistic aspirations; but the poems that dealt
with these subjects were, on the whole, the least successful of the
collection; and with the quick, critical instinct of an artist, Miss
Nesbit seems to have recognised this. In the present volume, at any
rate, such poems are rare, and these few felicitous verses give us the
poet's defence:

A singer sings of rights and wrongs,
Of world's ideals vast and bright,
And feels the impotence of songs
To scourge the wrong or help the right;
And only writhes to feel how vain
Are songs as weapons for his fight;
And so he turns to love again,
And sings of love for heart's delight.

For heart's delight the singers bind
The wreath of roses round the head,
And will not loose it lest they find
Time victor, and the roses dead.
'Man can but sing of what he knows--
I saw the roses fresh and red!'
And so they sing the deathless rose,
With withered roses garlanded.